1 . When Zhou Longshan started filming birds 10 years ago at Baiyangdian Lake, a major wetland in northern China, he just wanted to record his favorite species—egrets. Then, things snowballed. In the following years, the teacher became a bird-watcher, a volunteer ranger at the lake, a photographer documenting over 110 bird species and an educator popularizing bird-related information among students.” Sharing bird-protection knowledge with children can make them feel the beauty of their hometown and the importance of birds, and help them cultivate the habit of protecting birds from an early age,” he says.
Over time, Zhou’s interest in birds continued to grow. In 2021, he was appointed as a bird observer by the natural resources bureau (自然资源局) of Anxin county, responsible for conducting regular patrols (巡逻) and popularizing bird-related knowledge. To monitor birds, Zhou would ride a bike to Baiyangdian almost every day before dawn, whatever the weather. He would record the birds appearing at the lake, along with their locations, where they fed and when they migrated, thus providing reference data for staff members of the natural resources bureau of Anxin county.
Although Zhou takes delight in the role, there are still many challenges. Sometimes, he has to navigate earth embankments on his bike. One summer day in 2021, he fell into a ditch with water more than a meter deep, resulting in water damage to his cellphone.
However, these difficult episodes have not undermined Zhou’s love of birds. Over the years, he has taken more than 100,000 pictures of the birds at Baiyangdian. During his spare time, he reads books on China’s birds, talks with other enthusiasts and university professors, and updates his WeChat official account to introduce Baiyangdian to a wider audience.
These days, Zhou’s schedule is growing busier. In addition to his regular patrols near the lake, he is sometimes invited to local schools to give lectures, keeping students informed about birds and how to protect them. Zhou will retire next month. “I will continue patrolling the lake and photographing the birds to contribute to the protection of birds in my hometown,” he says.
1. Why did Zhou start taking photos of birds at first?| A．To share bird-protection knowledge with children. |
| B．To cultivate the habit of protecting birds. |
| C．To keep track of his favorite species. |
| D．To become a volunteer ranger at the lake. |
| A．He rode a bike to Baiyangdian every day before dawn. |
| B．He went to Baiyangdian in all weathers. |
| C．He recorded all the birds along with their locations. |
| D．He provided reference data for natural resources bureau. |
| A．He didn’t meet any challenges while doing the job. |
| B．He reads books about birds all over the world in his free time. |
| C．He is invited to local schools to give lectures every day. |
| D．He uses social media to introduce Baiyangdian to more people. |
| A．Enthusiastic and controlling. | B．Knowledgeable and persistent. |
| C．Farsighted and reserved. | D．Considerate and stubborn. |
2 . It was July 15, 2021, and my friends had helped me celebrate my 31st birthday in the basement apartment of my sister’s home, where I lived.
Earlier in the day I had prepared for the unlikely event of a flood. We are about a third of a mile from the banks of the Ahr River. It had been raining that week, and authorities had issued a flood warning, though not for where I was. Still, I’d placed sandbags on the floor outside my garden door and piled clothing on tables. Before my friends left, they laughed at me for doing that, but I thought, “Why take a chance?”
As I went to sleep, I was awakened by the sound of rushing water. When I swung my legs off the bed, I was shocked by the sensation of cold-water lapping against my knees and rising fast. The Ahr River had violently burst its banks. And I had to get out fast!
The water was now up to my waist. I started to wade to my only escape: the door that leads upstairs to the rest of the house. Finally, I made it to the door. I managed to make a gap of about a foot, just wide enough to squeeze through and make it into the hallway. I leaped onto the stairs and ran to the third floor.
The river had drowned the neighborhood. What was once a lovely, cozy street was now a waterscape. More than 180 people died, and parts of villages were entirely washed away. Many of the houses around us were destroyed. Not everyone got out.
I came close to drowning that day. But rather than dwell on that, I prefer to recall what my mother told me afterward, “Christian, don’t remember the day when you lost everything. Remember the day you survived.”
1. What does the underlined word “that” refer to?| A．Celebrating a birthday. | B．Managing the garden. |
| C．Warning friends of a flood. | D．Preparing for the flood. |
| A．To let the water out. | B．To keep things being swept away. |
| C．To reduce the flow of water. | D．To escape to the upstairs. |
| A．Its cause. | B．Its damage. | C．Its scale. | D．Its process. |
| A．To show his hope for the future. | B．To indicate the loss of everything. |
| C．To highlight the power of flooding. | D．To stress the role of good luck. |
3 . Have you ever wondered what happens to your mobile phones and laptops after you throw them out to make way for a newer model? According to its latest Global E-Waste Monitor, India is the third top producer of e-waste in the world. E-waste in Indian landfill goes on to pollute soil and groundwater, affecting food supply systems and water sources.
Thankfully, the country has a new group of artists who are changing these thrown mechanical items-from mobile phones to old televisions- into large murals (壁画) and artworks to creatively show their concern for the waste problem.
Over the past quarter of a century, Mumbai’s Haribaabu Naatesan has transformed hundreds of tonnes of e-waste into art, integrating elements from nature and industry. “I get my waste material from friends, relatives and neighbours who know my interest in e-art and send me bags of thrown electronic appliances,” says Naatesan. Over his career, he has created huge murals for several companies. He has also showed his work at the India Art Fair, as well as several other national displays.
Another artist Vishwanath Davangere has also long worked with e-waste. He likes to take apart old laptops and reassemble (重新组装) them into birds, animals and plants. After retirement, he started pursuing this hobby more seriously and started selling his creations across the world. His most outstanding works include a robotic Egyptian statue with glowing red eyes and a Milky Way made from keyboard keys. He hopes to enable others to reconsider their own consumption habits and make more environmentally conscious choices.
“By giving e-waste a second chance, I aim to raise awareness about the environmental impact of electronic waste.” says Davangare, who today has a collection of more than 600 eco-art objects.
1. Why do the artists create artworks from E-waste?| A．To promote their artistic career. | B．To update electronic appliances. |
| C．To make profits for several companies. | D．To express their environmental concern. |
| A．His creations are displayed globally. | B．He gains support from people around. |
| C．He has been creating e-art for 10 years. | D．His works integrate technology and history. |
| A．Reliable. | B．Confident. | C．Devoted. | D．Generous. |
| A．E-waste Recycling Sweeping the World | B．Environmental Problems Worrying Indians |
| C．An Art Movement Turning Trash into Cash | D．Indian Creatives Transforming E-waste into Art |
At 3:42 a. m. everything began to shake. One of the most deadly
But hope was not lost. The army sent 150,000 soldiers to Tangshan to dig out those who
Tangshan started to revive
1. How many hectares of tea trees are there in Jiajiang county?
| A．20,000. | B．35,000. | C．46,000. |
| A．To South Africa. | B．To East Asia. | C．To Central Asia. |
| A．By focusing on the soil. |
| B．By using good farm chemicals. |
| C．By watering tea trees on time. |
6 . Right now, summers are getting hotter, winters colder and the polar ice is melting at an alarming rate. Extreme weather events and natural disasters frequently occur. The climate time-bomb is ticking. Strict measures must be taken to tackle the problem.
It reminds me of how the lives we live seem to follow roughly in the way put forward years earlier by the writers of science-fiction. I guess it’s “life imitating art”. When I was young there were stories about rockets going into space and even going to the moon, although there had never been a rocket into space at that time. Years later, Russia launched Sputnik, the first man-made object to go into earth orbit and later the US landed people and even a car on the moon.
When I was growing up there were also science-fiction stories about governments looking for solutions when the world’s natural resources were being over-extended, such as they are in the case of climate change. The solution in the stories was to assume that the cause of the problem was over-population and the solution, therefore, was to limit the number of people. Various plans were put forward for doing that, from limiting the birth rate to killing off anyone over a certain age. That age, if I remember correctly, was usually about 60 and when you reached that you were supposed to turn yourself over to a government facility where you would be put to death.
Still, a look at the old science-fiction stories provides an interesting and somewhat chilling approach to what is acknowledged to be a very serious and worsening world-wide problem. There is general agreement that urgent action is needed to stop us from literally making our world unfit to live on. The answers, at least so far, concentrate on managing those resources and the ways in which we use them. However, I wonder if the day will come when life will imitate the art of the old science-fiction stories and someone will propose limiting the number of people on the planet as a way of making it more suitable for those who are left. It’s a grave thing to predict.
1. What does the author say about climate problems?| A．The problems can be tackled in a scientific way. |
| B．The problems are in urgent need of being resolved. |
| C．The explosion of extreme climates is under control. |
| D．The loss of natural resources leads to climate changes. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By using quotes. |
| C．By giving definitions. | D．By making contrast. |
| A．Removing overpopulated species. | B．Getting rid of seniors. |
| C．Over-extending natural resources. | D．Moving onto the moon. |
| A．Calm. | B．Serious. | C．Frustrated. | D．Matter-of-fact. |
With the
The bad weather may have something to do with the worsening of environment. People may think that big things must be done to protect the environment. Many forget protecting it begins with small things. For example, it’s a good idea to use reusable bags instead of
8 . From 1990 to 2000, fishermen trying to get swordfish (剑鱼) off the coast of California accidentally caught and killed over 100 sea turtles (海龟), and injured many more. In 2001, the government set up the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area (PLCA), an area off the coast of California where fishing boats are not allowed to enter from August to November. Since then, the number of turtles killed by mistake has fallen rapidly, but a small number of animals still die from being caught in fishing nets each year. And at the same time, the once $15 million swordfish industry has become a $ 2 million industry.
Scientists are hoping to find a way to not only protect sea turtles and other endangered creatures but also help fishermen make a living. For this, many scientists are looking at dynamic ocean management to help fishing boats meet fish where they are and avoid catching other creatures by mistake.
The first paper to suggest that the fish living in the open ocean should be guarded with fluid, ever-changing zones of protection, came out in 2000. Larry Crowder, a professor at Hopkins Marine Station, remembers reading it and thinking, “Cool idea, but it will never work.” In 2000, scientists didn’t have the computer power to cheaply test statistical models or deal with satellite data quickly. They didn’t have enough data dealing with fish or satellite data on ocean conditions, either.
Now scientists can download satellite data of oceans in minutes and attach satellite archival tag to sea animals to track their movements. They first collect data by marking the creatures, collecting reports from fishing boats, or other tracking ways. Then they compare that data with weather conditions, the time of year, and any other data that can be sensed. Finally, they can predict where fish probably are.
Crowder and his workmates used the data to develop a tool called EcoCast during the 2012 and 2015 fishing seasons, they could have fished in at least 125,000 square miles, without high risk of hunting turtles.
1. The government hoped that PLCA and its rules could .| A．prevent fishing in the PLCA |
| B．help collect data for future research |
| C．protect the creatures in the area to some degree |
| D．make the public realize the importance of our environment |
| A．unrealistic | B．stupid | C．possible | D．interesting |
| A．A great way to collect data. |
| B．Some technology fruits in this field |
| C．A scientific way to find new ocean animals |
| D．The way dynamic ocean management works |
| A．It protects the ocean from pollution. |
| B．It helps support the fishing industry. |
| C．It prevents fishermen from getting lost while fishing. |
| D．It both protects ocean animals and supports the fishing industry. |
9 . The most beloved bird in history may very well have been a 29-year-old pigeon by the name of Martha. It was the early 1900s, and Martha was at the height of her fame. Perched on her humble roost at the Cincinnati Zoo, she was an object of fascination to the thousands of visitors who lined up just to catch a glimpse. Martha may not have looked the part of an animal celebrity, but she was hardly average—in fact, she was the very definition of one of a kind. After the death of her companion George in 1910, Martha had become the world’s last-living passenger pigeon.
There was a time not long before when her kind accounted for more than a quarter of the birds in North America and may have been the most abundant bird species on the planet. Passenger pigeons used to travel at 60 miles an hour in flocks a mile wide and 300 miles long. Witnesses compared them to a train rumbling through a tunnel.
Ironically, the passenger pigeons’ very abundance may have spelled their doom. An agricultural pest and reliable source of protein, they became easy targets for hunters who killed them in the tens of thousands. In a matter of decades, a bird that once numbered in the billions was reduced to a few, and then, eventually, to one.
Martha, who’d grown up in captivity, had no offspring of her own. At 1 p.m. on September 1, 1914, Martha fell from her perch, never to rise again—one of the rare occasions in which historians could identify the exact moment of a species’ extinction.
Of course, the real tragedy was that the loss of the passenger pigeon was neither surprising nor unique. For as long as the Earth has sustained life, it has also seen the permanent disappearance of life forms, the dinosaurs being a particularly extreme example. But Martha’s high-profile death trained national attention on an alarming new trend. Close to a thousand animal species alone have died off in the last 500 years, and the trend is only getting worse.
1. What caused the extinction of passenger pigeons?| A．The loss of their habitats. | B．The worsening of global warming. |
| C．The burning of fossil fuels. | D．Their nutritional value and threat to farming. |
| A．To illustrate we can do nothing to stop species extinction. |
| B．To show the extinction of a certain species is not a rare case. |
| C．To explain human activities are to blame for species extinction. |
| D．To stress immediate measures should be taken before it is too late. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Confused. | C．Relieved. | D．Concerned. |
| A．The most beloved bird George died. |
| B．Birds are the best friends of human beings. |
| C．The tragic loss of the last passenger pigeon. |
| D．The most abundant bird species are endangered. |
10 . South Baltimore is often thought of as a place to avoid—folks are taught to be careful of it. There was a mass shooting this past July, and another in early September.
“People think Curtis Bay is a dangerous place. It’s not. It’s just we’re surrounded by dangerous things,” says Taysia Thompson, 17.
Taysia, is one of the Free Your Voice members, a group of student activists fighting against a very different kind of danger in their neighborhood: air pollution and climate change. Now, the focus of their movement is the mountains of coal. Coal releases a fine, black dust small enough to get into people’s lungs. It makes respiratory (呼吸的) diseases worse, or can even cause disease and premature death. And there are the greenhouse gas emissions after the coal is burned.
The teens of Free Your Voice are taking on a big opponent: the massive goods transportation company CSX, which transported more than 8 million tons of coal through South Baltimore in 2021. The goal is to eventually get the state regulators to deny the permit that CSX needs to operate, or at least require the company to enclose all the coal, or at the very least put water onto all of it so there’s less dust blowing around.
This past summer, Taysia and three other students spent their time gathering evidence to try and get the coal pollution out of their neighborhood. They used sticky paper to gather samples of dust from all over the neighborhood to prove that the dust is from coal. They are also sending dust samples to a scientist in California, who uses an electron microscope to compare the dust that’s in this neighborhood to samples from the piles of coal at the terminal in South Baltimore to see if it matches.
The students now have support from their community. But the responses from officials have not been very satisfying. “Everyone is just breathing the air. And we will keep fighting.” says Taysia.
1. Why do the teens of Free Your Voice take CSX as an opponent?| A．To cure lung diseases. | B．To tackle air pollution. |
| C．To resist mass shootings. | D．To cut premature death rate. |
| A．Scientists will examine the dust samples. |
| B．Officials will refuse CSX the operation permit. |
| C．State regulators will keep fighting against pollution. |
| D．Locals in Curtis Bay will clear the mountains of coal away. |
| A．It isn’t all plain sailing. | B．It will definitely end in victory. |
| C．The teens lack solid evidence. | D．The teens work on it all by themselves. |
| A．Tourists Avoiding Dangerous South Baltimore |
| B．Teens Gaining Support in Environmental Protection |
| C．Student Activists Pushing back against Big Polluter |
| D．17-year-old Girl Combating Coal Pollution in Neighborhood |
